Forest Service looks at changes. By Brodie Farquhar. Casper Star-Tribune correspondent.
This proposal would greatly change this old line public lands agency. It will further deplete the number of employees actually on the ground.
Here is the view of PEER. It’s a new release.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Forest Service To Pull Its Scientists And Planners From Field. Massive Consolidation of NEPA Functions Will Take Thousands Out of Forests.
Part of this may be due to the fact that they lose NEPA lawsuit after lawsuit to conservation groups, but the problem is not inability to prepare a proper environmental impact statements, but under the Bush Administration the failure to obey the laws of the land.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
The NEPA Feasibility Study that preceded this pending action notes that “The vast majority of Forest Service projects require familiarity with conditions on the ground where the activities take place,”. Yet their answer is to pull resources out of the local offices, removing on-the-ground staff –and local knowledge– and placing them hundreds of miles away.
Tomorrow marks the one-year mark in the Bush Countdown. Unfortunately it’s a leap year, giving the Bushies an additional 24 hours to wreak havoc.
Give them all the bright yellow banana shirts and let them scientists do some real work, like fight fires! I’d like to see even more of the FS budget go to into this spending boondoggle! Let’s get that fire fighting budget up above the current 50-75% they currently waste.
Yes, the only response to this that does not involve ripping your hair out is to laugh. Can we draft Jimmy Carter to be President for one more term?